Finally, there may have been an active effort immediately after the case ended by psychoanalysts attempting to capitalize on the public’s new interest in Freudian themes to break the initial connection with the trial. This is speculation, not to be confused with a historical fact. Psychoanalysis at the time was involved in a battle for public attention with experimental psychology (see Chapter 1). Evidence shows that immediately after the trial, magazine articles about psychoanalysis reached their peak (see Chapter 7), which indicates that those attempting to popularize psychoanalysis were taking advantage of public interest to explain their theories. This is at the time in which experimental psychologists were horrified that the public was confusing psychology with psychoanalysis (Hornstein, 1992).
Yet, most of the general public during the trial associated the alienists for the defense, who were primarily psychoanalysts, as helping to save two cold-blooded killers from proper punishment (Hale, 1995). The public believed that the death penalty was the appropriate punishment. The best way to capitalize on this situation would be to publicize psychoanalysis to take advantage of the public’s newfound interest, while simultaneously not reminding the public where they first became interested in Freudian themes and concepts. The media coverage about psychoanalysis and Freud in the years that followed the trial did not mention psychoanalysis together with Leopold and Loeb, which ultimately would make it difficult for the historian as the years went by.
Freud’s first appearance on the cover of Time magazine (October 27, 1924) and accompanying article provides a specific example of how psychoanalysis was immediately separated from the Leopold and Loeb trial. I chose this specific article because many have pointed to this cover as evidence of Freud’s widespread popularity, but appear unaware of the fact that the murder trial of Robert Franks had just concluded several weeks earlier. Specifically, the article about Freud called “Freud and Freudism” occurs on page 20 of the magazine, and alerts the reader to two recent translations of Freud’s works and descriptions of books now available in the United States (these new translations occurred with the help of his nephew, Edward Bernays; see Chapter 7). Likewise, Freud’s career, his character, some of his pupils, the doctrine of psychoanalysis, and some of Freud’s other writings are all discussed. What is left out is any mention of psychoanalysis as it related to the Leopold and Loeb case, which had just concluded the previous month. Dr. White, the most famous psychoanalyst in the United States at the time who had been previously discussed in magazine articles about Freud and psychoanalysis, was not mentioned.
This pattern of separating psychoanalysis from the murder trial would continue, and was a useful strategy for capitalizing on the public’s newfound interest in Freudian issues. Please note that I am not suggesting that those who were attempting to capitalize on the public’s interest in psychoanalysis were intentionally trying to distort history at the time. Not mentioning psychoanalysis and the Leopold and Loeb case together was simply the smart thing to do from a public relations standpoint. However, it likely had the effect of making the dinosaur bones (see Chapter 2) more difficult to find as the years passed on the topic of Freud’s popularization. Imagine if Freud’s first appearance on the cover of Time magazine had been a picture of Freud in the middle, and Leopold on one couch and Loeb on the other? Perhaps if this had occurred, the trial would not have lost its connection with the popularization of Freud and psychoanalysis. For readers who are interested in viewing Freud’s initial appearance on the cover of Time magazine and the accompanying story, you can find it at Time’s website (http://www.time.com/time/coversearch/) which allows you to search by “Articles” or “Covers.” Perhaps more enjoyable is to go and search the shelves at a library that has an archived copy of the magazine because you can also see the other articles of the time.
How the Leopold and Loeb Case Fills in Some Blanks
Most who have written about Freud’s popularization in scholarly journal articles and book chapters, books, and textbooks do not mention the Leopold and Loeb case. Before I discuss the few who had written about the case below, let me provide a few examples of how the trial is typically left out of the discussion of Freud’s popularization, and how the Leopold and Loeb case helps in contributing to our understanding about how Freud gained such widespread popularity with the general public. The intent here is not to single out specific authors for criticism or ridicule, but to provide concrete examples. Let’s start with two articles that were published in the American Psychological Association’s flagship journal, American Psychologist. I also chose these articles to highlight because the articles must go through peer-review prior to being published, and the process of having a manuscript independently reviewed in a prestigious journal prior to publication did not catch the omission. These examples should help to illustrate just how widespread lack of knowledge is among psychologists about the trial.
Specifically, Raymond Fancher’s (2000) Snapshots of Freud in America, 1899-1999, is an excellent historical account of Freud with the one following exception. He attributes Freud becoming a household name to the English translations of his major works (e.g., Interpretation of Dreams, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, and so forth). As the author describes, “The accessibility of these works helped make Freud’s name a veritable household word in the United States, and in October of 1924, he made his first appearance on the cover of Time magazine” (p. 1026). This interpretation seems extremely unlikely. As Hale (1971, p. 430) correctly notes, “books by Freud and by the American analysts were read by very few people.” Exactly how books that sold such few copies leading up to October 1924 resulted in Freud gaining widespread name recognition is not explained by the author, yet is accepted without critical evaluation by most readers. The simpler explanation for Freud ultimately becoming a household name and for his appearance on the cover of Time magazine is the public interest in psychoanalytic theory generated as a result of the Leopold and Loeb case.
Gail Hornstein’s (1992) article published in American Psychologist, which I reviewed in Chapter 1, provides the reader with a fascinating account of the struggle between psychology and psychoanalysis. While the author notes that the popular reception of psychoanalysis by the American public is beyond the scope of the article, I believe that the Leopold and Loeb case helps fill in a very important gap. Specifically, experimental psychologists were aghast that the public was confusing psychology with psychoanalysis during the mid-to-late 1920s. One potential reason why this confusion occurred is that psychoanalysis was during the trial called the “New Psychology” by the newspapers. For many people, this “New Psychology” of psychoanalysis was the first psychology that they either heard of or were interested in because of the Leopold and Loeb case. This confusion that psychologists are all Freudian psychoanalysts continues today.
Finally, Paul Dennis (2002) published an interesting article in the Journal of History of the Behavioral Sciences, in which he calculated the frequency of editorials in the New York Times from 1904 to 1947 in four year intervals on four topics related to psychology (Hugo Münsterberg, Mental Tests, Child Rearing, Freud). He also calculated the percentage of negative editorial commentary by topic. Prior to the murder trial the editorial commentary about Freud and psychoanalysis was primarily positive, but after the trial it was largely negative. While there may exist several explanations as to why this occurred, the Leopold and Loeb trial likely played a role, as the Times was largely critical of the Freudian interpretations during the trial (e.g., see “Ex Post Facto,” August 24, 1924, p. 12 mentioned in Chapter 10).
Historical Interpretations by Others
There are just a handful of individuals who have written about the Leopold and Loeb case as it relates to Freud’s popularization. First, Nathan Hale (1995, pp. 91-93) accurately describes the case, and notes that the testimony by the Freudians during the case like Dr. White would inspire the next generation of forensic psychoanalysts (see Dr. Diamond as an example below). My major difference of opinion with Dr
. Hale’s interpretation is that he categorizes Crime of the Century, which was front page news across the country for weeks and generated public debate about psychoanalytic testimony, as just one of a “few conspicuous events” that “marked the course of popularization” (p. 77). Dr. Hale lumps the Leopold and Loeb case in with the 1930 International Mental Hygiene Congress in Washington, D.C., and the 1931 banquet honoring Freud’s birthday held in New York City and was attended by many intellectuals (the party thrown by his nephew Edward Bernays mentioned at the end of Chapter 10). While the other two events were of interest to the professional and intellectual communities, they simply do not compare to the publicity generated by the Leopold and Loeb case as it relates to the general public. Thus, my major disagreement is that I believe that Dr. Hale’s interpretation underestimates the importance of the trial in popularizing Freud with the general public. It was not one of a few conspicuous events, but the pivotal event for becoming famous with the general public.
One subsequent forensic psychoanalyst who was inspired by the trial was Bernard L. Diamond, who was a professor of Law at Berkeley. As Dr. Diamond recalled (1994, p. 5), “I was a school boy in Fresno, California, in 1924, and I remember very clearly the summer this trial took place. It was the first time I had ever heard of Sigmund Freud, and I was enormously fascinated with the daily reports of the trial.” Diamond, who was 12 at the time of the trial, noted that his image of “the psychoanalyst was not of Freud, but of William Alanson White, the psychoanalyst in the courtroom” (p. 6). According to Diamond (1994, p. 5), “the average man in the street had never heard of Freud and never heard the word psychoanalysis until it screamed from the newspaper headlines.” The first part of that statement is correct, that the average person had not heard of Freud prior to the trial. However, the second portion is correct only metaphorically. Freud’s name and the specific term psychoanalysis were used sporadically in the newspapers and were not on the front pages during the trial. Thus, the newspaper headlines did not directly expose most individuals to Freud himself and the term psychoanalysis. The primary importance of the Leopold and Loeb trial was in generating personal interest in psychoanalytic terms and concepts, which would ultimately lead to name recognition for the father of psychoanalysis. In contrast to Hale above, I believe that Diamond overstates the case, but is ultimately correct about the importance of the trial.
I found Catherine Covert’s (1975) dissertation at the end stages of my gathering resource materials for this book. In fact, I was unfortunately unaware of her work until I was reviewing the references in Caplan’s (1998a) article about the importance of the Emmanuel Movement in setting the stage for psychoanalysis in America. Perhaps her work has been largely unnoticed because it was published as a dissertation in American History, not the History of Psychology. As Covert (1975, p. 12) notes, many readers of newspapers during the Leopold and Loeb case “for the first time were exposed to basic Freudian theory—including something of the influence of childish experience, thought and feeling on adult behavior, something of the way sexual deviance and criminal behavior may originate, and something of the distinction between insanity and lesser forms of mental disturbance.” However, her focus was examining how Freudian ideas changed from his original intent when disseminated through the American newspapers to the American public. She did not directly address the issue of exactly how did Freud become a household name in America. Yet, as I previously mentioned in Chapter 9, it is a shame that she did not convert her dissertation into a book or a journal article because her work could have alerted others to the importance of the Leopold and Loeb trial for Freud’s popularization with the general public. Instead, her work has been largely ignored.
Conclusions
Ultimately, this book was written with several aims in mind. First, it was written for the individual with a limited background in history. If I have been successful as an author, the reader should now possess a better understanding of the process of recreating the past, and the pitfalls that can interfere with an accurate representation of history. Likewise, the reader should now be able to differentiate historical facts from historical interpretations. For example, it is simply beyond dispute that Sigmund Freud was on the cover of Time magazine in October, 1924 (i.e., a historical fact). In contrast, exactly why Freud was chosen for the cover is currently open to interpretation. Was the timing a direct result of the Leopold and Loeb trial, or was the cover planned well before the murder of Bobby Franks? While there is always more to learn about the process of history, I hope I have provided the reader with a solid foundation to build upon.
Likewise, the reader should now have an appreciation of (a) the need to critically evaluate historical claims, and (b) the value of historical research. In this book, I provided a number of examples in which the data fragments of history did not match what was ultimately reported in later historical accounts. It is important to note that applying critical thinking to historical interpretations is important not only for the examination of Freud and psychoanalysis, but for all people and events of the past. Gregory Burton (2001, p. 228) makes an insightful observation, “One recurring and discouraging theme in the history of science is the widespread acceptance of false facts. Some historical canards are promulgated not only by popular outlets but also are incorporated into sources that are generally expected, and assumed, to be more trustworthy.” Remember the scandalous Dr. Watson from Chapter 1 and his famous “little Albert” experiment? Unfortunately, there often exists a discrepancy between what Watson and Rayner (1920) reported and how subsequent authors have presented the case (see Burton, 2001; Gilovich, 1993, for further discussion). It is historical research that can help to identify these discrepancies, and provide us with a better understanding of what happened in the past.
I also hope that I achieved a minor but nonetheless important goal of counteracting the history is “boring” stereotype. While I will not recount the number of topic areas covered in this book that I consider fascinating and I hope you do as well, the history of psychology is full of more intriguing people and events that are beyond the scope of this book. I hope that the interested reader will continue to learn more about history, especially the history of psychology. In fact, I have saved one last issue that I believe should be of interest, but wanted to save this topic area until the reader had a better understanding of the process of history and the need to critically evaluate historical claims. Specifically, did Sigmund Freud, the Father of Psychoanalysis, have a sexual affair with his wife’s younger sister, Minna Bernays?
Rumors of a potential affair between Freud and his sister-in-law have long been part of the history of psychoanalysis, but have once again surfaced relatively recently as new historical document has been uncovered (another dinosaur bone). Specifically, Freud had checked into a Swiss hotel with Minna and registered as “Freud and wife.” Here, I will not provide my opinion about what the evidence indicates as I believe it is a useful exercise for the reader to view the relevant existing scholarship and opinions on the topic area, critically evaluate the evidence and historical interpretations, and ultimately derive your own opinion of what you believe is most likely to have occurred as well as setting your own standard of evidence (do you need beyond a reasonable doubt, a preponderance of the evidence, and so forth). I have provided a list a journal articles in Appendix B on this specific topic area in rough chronological order (some were published in the same time period in different journals). Once again, for those that believe that history is just a bunch of boring facts and dates, nothing could be further from the truth!
Also, as some readers may like a suggestion for a fascinating topic area outside of psychology’s history, I would recommend learning more about England’s most famous king, Henry VIII. To say that he lead an interesting life would be an understatement. Specifically, comparing Alison Weir’s (1991) wonderful book, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, with Showtime’s television series, The Tudors, will make a captivating project for just about anyone.
Without the events that occurred during the summer of 1924, it is difficult to fathom how Freud would have obtained the iconic status that he currently enjoys with the general public. Yet, even if we assume Freud would have eventually become well-known to the general public without the murder of Robert Franks, the Leopold and Loeb case cannot be ignored or minimized when recounting how Freud first obtained widespread popularity in America because the events and media coverage did happen. History is ultimately what happened. For better or worse, the Leopold and Loeb trial made America a Psychoanalytic nation. Once the general public first became exposed to Freudian theory in a context that was personally relevant; Freud’s ideas never left and continue to interest the American public today. Even those of us who believe Freud’s ideas are ultimately wrong must admit they are inherently fascinating.
Finally, let me thank the reader who has made your way through this book from start to finish. I hope the next time you see a Freudian reference while watching your favorite television show, or reading a bestselling novel, you now will think about the question of exactly how Dr. Freud first become a household name in America. If my interpretation is correct, the reason why Freud and Freudian theory need no explanation with the general public today is the result of Leopold and Loeb brutally murdering an innocent boy.
Freud, Murder, and Fame: Lessons in Psychology’s Fascinating History Page 19